Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 12 - Chapter 9

Princess of the Beach

Practically every time they were on break in the briefing room, they’d all get worked up over a conversation about some trivial subject. When someone asked what their favorite season was, they answered, “I like snow, so winter, I guess,” or “Fall’s nice because the food is so good,” or “Definitely spring.” Inferno, meanwhile, declared that summer was the best season for the Pure Elements.

Swinging around her scimitar, she insisted passionately, “These outfits are too cold for spring and fall. We’re in swimsuits; that’s summer clothes.”

Deluge thought that Inferno’s costume—the other three of them aside—was more like underwear than a swimsuit, but she didn’t say that out loud.

“You’re not in a swimsuit, you’re in underwear. You’ve even got garters.” Tempest lacked Deluge’s restraint, however, and flatly spoke her mind.

“If you take the garters off, I’m in the clear,” Inferno replied, to which Quake said with a laugh, “Okay, that just sounds really bad.” Deluge laughed as well. “You’re right,” she agreed.

“But it’s summer now,” said Inferno. “This is the season of the Pure Elements! So, like, don’t you think we should do something special? Something awesome?”

“Why’s summer the Pure Elements’ season?” asked Tempest. “You’re the one who likes summer, Inferno. I like spring more, so the Pure Elements’ season is spring.”

“But the Pure Elements’ season is the summer ’cause of our clothes… Oh, I know, let’s test it out.”

“Test what out?”

“It’s summertime! And summer means the beach. I think we should all go to the beach and test out how summery the Pure Elements are. How about it?”

“Hey, we can’t go to the beach as magical girls.”

“We won’t know until we try! C’moooonnn. I’m sure Ms. Tanaka’ll say it’s a great idea!”

“I don’t know about that…”

  Princess Deluge

When they’d become magical girls, Ms. Tanaka had told them to keep their identities a secret. You never knew who would be leaking information to the Disrupters. They had to keep that they were magical girls a secret, even from their family and friends. She said they also had to avoid behavior that would make people realize they were magical girls.

But despite that, she’d said they were allowed to go to the beach this time. She’d very kindly even gotten them bus tickets for the round trip. And it wasn’t someplace where they wouldn’t have to worry about being seen, like a private beach, or an empty island way out in the middle of the ocean. It was a well-known swimming beach crowded with tourists.

Tempest was in high spirits, and Inferno was, too, unsurprisingly, going on about how pumped she was about summer. Though Quake didn’t appear as wildly excited about it, she was watching Tempest and Inferno with a kind, maternal smile. It didn’t seem as if she saw any problems with the situation.

In order to be more discreet, they changed into T-shirts, hoodies, and cotton pants, removing their accessories and retying their hair. But even after doing all that, the four magical girls stood out. And when people who stood out were being loud on top of that, they stood out even more.

Was it okay for them to be drawing attention? It was kind of thoughtless to assume it would be fine, so long as they weren’t found out, wasn’t it? Deluge felt a sigh coming on but kept it to herself. Worrying about this and waffling around when Ms. Tanaka had given them permission would be her loss. Acting like this, she was no different from when she was an ordinary human, as Nami Aoki.

Deluge made up her mind. She was going to enjoy herself, too, while also covering for all the others, to avoid drawing attention as much as possible and keep from exposing their true identities. This was the beach, after all—anywhere with water was Princess Deluge’s home turf. Here she could make the best of her unique powers, which were hard to use at the lab.

Then, right as she was managing to feel just a little positive…

“Ohhh! Look! Over there! The ocean!” Tempest leaned forward over Deluge’s lap.

Deluge looked where Tempest was pointing. Bright light was pouring in through the windows. On the other side of the guardrail was sandy beach and the ocean.

  Princess Inferno

The banner fluttering in the parking lot was covered in a cutesy font reading BEACH VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT, along with an adorable illustration of a girl doing a somersault receive. There were faint signs of something else having been erased, and with the light coming from behind the banner, you could see fragments of words: —FIEND CRAM—HELL— Maybe the sign had been repurposed from some other event.

Tempest undid her ponytails while Deluge tied her own hair into ponytails. Quake just undid her braids, but she had more hair than anticipated, and she came off as the most different of the four of them. Their clothing wasn’t any more or less revealing than usual, but it felt freeing. Removing the fetters that were their costumes and walking around in broad daylight in outfits that were as revealing as underwear felt liberating in a way that they couldn’t get with their magical-girl activities at night.

Tempest’s healthy thighs sprang along whether she flew or ran, Quake’s chest shook in a weighty way just from her laughter, and Deluge’s slender figure moved with grace.

Inferno gave her own bust and hips a couple gropes each, nodding deeply at the feeling of their presence—soft, but also abundantly springy. “We’re all so sexy.”

“How can you say that so seriously…?” Deluge muttered. “More importantly, Inferno, Quake, what are you doing with your tails?”

“Ah, I can shrink mine,” Inferno answered.

“The heck? First I’ve heard about that,” said Quake.

Making her scorpion tail smaller so it didn’t stand out was doable. It kinda made her get tired faster, and it also meant losing a means of attack, so normally, there was no point in doing it. In addition to that, she also wrapped a sarong around her waist.

“If we hide them with sarongs like this, it should be okay, right?” said Inferno. If she wrapped it firmly, there’d be no problem, no matter how much she jumped or hopped around in public.

Tempest said, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and raced out from the parking lot, and Quake said, “Me too,” before running off as well. Deluge was confused, going, “Huh? Are we just doing our own thing?” But when she tried to make a break for the beach, Inferno grabbed her by the shoulder, stopping her.

“Huh? What is it?”

“Do you know the rules of beach volleyball, Deluge?” Inferno asked her.

“I’ve played volleyball at school.”

“I’ll teach you the rules about setting and passing before we start playing.”

“Huh? Sorry, I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

Inferno’s eyelashes fluttered as she winked. “Let’s aim for the championship at beach volleyball!”

“Wait, what? I’m playing, too?”

“Yeah, duh. You’ve gotta play in pairs to participate.” Deluge was still confused, but Inferno prodded her in the back. They were headed to the site of the beach volleyball game. “If we team up, then victory will be ours. I mean, we’re a fire-and-water combo!”

“I feel like those cancel each other out…”

Princess Inferno—that is, Akari Hiyama—couldn’t run at full speed anymore. By becoming a magical girl, she could once again go as fast as her heart desired. That alone was plenty to be happy about.

But she thought that if she could compete in something, and if she could win, she’d be even happier. Cooperating with all the Pure Elements to fight Disrupters wasn’t bad. But at heart, Inferno—Akari Hiyama—was about competition. She wanted to compete with someone. And she wanted to win.

A little crowd had gathered at the edge of the beach. There were lines of those flags for the beach volleyball tournament, and it looked like there were also costumed mascots and cosplayers. Tugging Deluge by the hand, Inferno raced toward the crowd.

  Princess Quake

Swimsuit time—an indispensable part of magical-girl-hood, as the rumors went.

Princess Quake strolled through the beach with a sketchbook in one hand. Even walking along the hot sand in her bare feet, she didn’t get burned. She could go elegantly along the shore without any preparation.

And not only did she not need sandals, she didn’t need sunscreen, either. She didn’t get sunburned. Ms. Tanaka had assured them that magical-girl skin was not damaged by UV rays. So even wearing an outfit with a frightening ratio of skin exposure, she’d have no problems at all.

But as Chiko Satou, she’d have had nothing but problems. While mentally expressing her gratitude with a Thank you, magical girls, she opened up her sketchbook. Searching for her mark among the swimmers, she found one. With magical-girl vision, whether the one she sought was riding an inflatable boat far out in the water or buried in sand at the end of the beach, Quake could find her. Once again, she mentally expressed gratitude: Thank you, magical girls.

She began to sketch: a child playing by the water’s edge, a child grasping an inflatable ring as she swam, a blindfolded child hitting a watermelon with a bat. The children in swimsuits were reminiscent of the angels that appeared in religious paintings.

As she was diligently sketching away, Quake heard someone call, “Hey you, lady, over there.” The voice was close, so she looked up from her sketchbook to see a young man with hair somewhere between brown and orange right in front of her face. She anxiously looked all around, but nobody else was there. In other words, this guy was talking to her.

Oh no, she thought. She wasn’t doing something she could be proud of. Closing her sketchbook and pasting on a look like she wasn’t doing anything bad, she responded, “Yes?”

The man was grinning widely. She looked back at him vacantly for a while before she understood what he was after, and then she got anxious for different reasons. She’d thought some lifeguard was going to take her to task for her suspicious behavior, but this guy was trying to pick her up, wasn’t he? Since Quake had never thought she’d be the target of such a thing, she had no idea how to respond, and she just bowed her head a bunch saying “Pardon me, I’m sorry,” as if she’d done something wrong, before somehow making her escape in a dithering flurry.

She’d never imagined such a disaster would befall her. The world really is a frightening place, she thought as she looked ahead to see more men with smiling faces.

After that, men hit on her at nearly every corner. She couldn’t possibly reject them tactfully, but neither could she acquiesce to their invitations, and so she clutched her sketchbook as she went off this way and ran off that way, over and over. Running around like this, she had no time to sketch. Even when using the concealment techniques she’d learned as Chiko Satou and attempting to move from shadow to shadow, she was easily found, and guys would approach her, saying, “What’s up?”

Princess Quake was not at all suited to hiding.

Confused, anxious, and alarmed, she also felt apologetic about them talking to her when she was originally Chiko, and also just a little bit glad, and then on top of that she even felt embarrassed for being in a swimsuit—why was it so skimpy, showing off her belly button, thighs, and even cleavage to an indeterminately large number of people? She tried to make herself as small as possible, but her soft and shapely chest and her seductive figure would not allow that. It was a dilemma: If she awkwardly attempted to make herself small and hide her chest with her sketchbook, the act emphasized her bust and made her look even more sexual. Quake was running around in confusion, restraining the urge to dig a hole on the spot and crawl into it, when she discovered Tempest—her own deus ex machina.

She started rushing to Tempest but then stopped. Tempest was being spoken to by a guy who looked like the frivolous type, and it seemed he was clearly trying to pick her up, but she turned him aside with a smile and briskly walked away. She was so composed and dignified, head and shoulders above Quake in terms of feminine maturity. Hit with an indescribable sense of defeat, Quake was unable to call out to Tempest as she watched her walk off so elegantly and confidently.

  Princess Tempest

Princess Tempest had had ulterior motives in becoming a magical girl. She’d become a member of the Pure Elements because she wanted to be able to take a form appropriate for Shou, her crush, who was in middle school. She was the kind of magical girl who defiantly thought that even if her motives were impure, since she was fighting the bad Disrupters and protecting justice every day, there was no problem.

There was nothing fun about walking along the beach in a swimsuit if she was in her human form, that of the second grader Mei Higashionna. But if Princess Tempest was walking around on the beach in a risqué swimsuit—then what about that?

Princess Tempest was charming and beautiful. Her costume was provocative—Inferno had even joked about it: “I think you’ve got the number one sexiest costume of the Pure Elements. Careful you’re not breaking any laws, Tempest!”

And that very Princess Tempest…was walking on the beach!

She took a step forward with her long, slender white legs, crunching the sand underfoot. With just that single movement, she felt eyes around her. She felt the commotion. Her magical-girl ears did not miss any of the tiniest whispers.

“Is she a TV celeb? Or a pop star…?”

“No, I’ve never seen her on TV.”

Excellent—this was great. Thinking she’d show herself off a little harder, she tightened the straps of her swimsuit, bringing her chest up and together. She’d heard that adult women did this.

When Tempest pushed her breasts up so they were squeezed together, the people all around made a stir.

“Whoa…”

“You go talk to her.”

“I get the feeling she’s a little too young, though… You think she’s of age?”

Unlike the adults, who were a ways away babbling on like that, a boy of around middle school age, who looked like he’d screwed up his courage to approach, came to talk to her. When he asked, “Wanna hang out?” and she asked back, “To do what?” he said, “I have a boat.” When she asked, “What else?” he replied, “If we get sick of the beach, we could do karaoke or bowling or something,” so she turned him down. Flying was more fun than a boat, and the school rules said you had to be with an adult to go to karaoke or bowling. If he’d challenged her to a match in Magical Battlers, the card game that was super popular at her elementary school, then she’d have been forced to accept, and she did think that if he’d at least gone with dodgeball or different kinds of tag—or watermelon smashing, since they were at the beach—that would’ve been something else.

But today, Princess Tempest would rather be doing this. She was getting so much attention just by walking. It was fun.

She would walk the beach from one end to the other, she decided, and became lost in her bliss. It was for the sake of this day that she’d watched those DVDs of fashion shows. She was walking with a slow and stunning strut, using the method she’d researched, with the attention and compliments making her even more ecstatic, when the smell of yakisoba tickled her nose.

Yakisoba!

She’d left the house saying she was going to the beach with her friends. She’d gotten a proper allowance for it, too. Inferno had said the yakisoba at the beach was really good. For it to be even better than the yakisoba she normally had—Tempest couldn’t imagine how delicious it would be.

Tempest pulled a sudden turn for the yakisoba, but then she caught something moving quickly out of the corner of her eye. It was Quake. It seemed as if she was sneaking around, hiding behind the stall.

Quake? Why’s she here?

Quake was staring at her. But why? Quake was another one of the Pure Elements, just like her, so there was no reason for her to be watching Tempest now. And there was definitely no reason for her to be hiding.

In front of the yakisoba stand, Tempest pondered this. Quake was the leader. The leader had a position of responsibility. She had to be thinking about the other members. Was she worrying about Tempest? But Tempest wasn’t doing anything that would make her worry. She was just walking around. Even if a guy tried to pick her up, it was easy to run away, so there really was no problem.

She thought hard about what had Quake so worried, and when she hit on it, she cried out. Ignoring the middle-aged man at the yakisoba stall who said to her with concern, “Are you all right, miss?” Tempest understood what it was Quake was worried about.

Tempest had become a magical girl for Shou. But walking from one end of the beach to the other to get attention from this indeterminately large number of people was basically a betrayal of him.

Tempest had hinted to Quake that she had a crush on someone. She had also been thinking she would try asking for advice about it soon. That was why Quake was worried. She had to be thinking, Is it okay for Tempest to be doing something like that when she has someone she likes?

Tempest hung her head. She felt embarrassed, remorseful. She hadn’t become a magical girl to go gallivanting on the beach. She’d forgotten what she’d become a magical girl for and had gotten carried away.

“Two yakisobas, mister,” Tempest told the guy at the stall.

“Here ya go.”

Carrying a plastic plate of yakisoba in each hand, Tempest went to talk to Quake, who was hiding behind the stall. “Quake, let’s have yakisoba together.”

“Huh?! Oh, Tempest? Wow! What a coincidence, running into you in a place like this.”

The mouthful of yakisoba she slurped down had a faintly salty taste, and it wasn’t just the sauce.

When Quake and Tempest returned to the parking lot, Inferno was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, and Deluge was saying something to her. It was abundantly clear that she was consoling Inferno.

“Did something happen?” asked Quake.

“Um, well…the beach volleyball tournament was a bit harder than she’d thought,” Deluge explained.

“You guys didn’t win?”

“We lost in the first round.”

“Damn it!” Inferno cried, raising a clenched fist aloft. “We should’ve used Ultimate Princess Explosion!”

“No, no, we couldn’t do that,” said Deluge.

“Hang on—if you two couldn’t win, then just how hard was this tournament?” Quake asked.

“The cosplayers and the people in mascot costumes were incredible. They had these explosions and lights,” said Inferno.

“True, they were amazing,” Deluge agreed.

“No matter how much their opponents tried, that team wouldn’t let them onto the court. They were using hypnosis and stuff.”

“Umm, that sounds more like…”

Inferno rose to her feet. Her eyes were practically alight. “Apparently, they have that tournament every year! So next year—next year, we’ll pass the first round… No, to victory! We aim for victory and start training now! Let’s run straight home!”

Deluge smirked, exhausted, then turned back to Tempest and Quake. “What’s up with you guys?”

“I’m racked with guilt.”

“I just feel defeated…”

“I don’t really get it, but…lots of stuff happened…”

“Come on! Let’s go! Last place buys the winner a can of juice!” Inferno raced off ahead of the others. Quake and then Tempest followed, the latter booing.

Turning her thoughts to next year’s beach volleyball tournament, Deluge dashed after them as well.